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“IDF must learn from the Syrians how to slaughter the enemy,” says prominent Israeli rabbi

Israelis come to support and gives presents to soldiers in the city of Ashdod on 18 November 2012, the fifth continuous day of Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Jack GuezjackAFP/Getty Images/Newscom

The Israeli army should learn from Syria how to “slaughter and crush the enemy” said Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, the son of Israel’s former Chief Rabbi and spiritual leader of the Shas party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

Rabbi Yaakov Yosef: “The IDF must learn from the Syrians how to slaughter the enemy”

“The army has got to learn from the Syrians how to slaughter and crush the enemy” - that is how Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, son of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, “blessed” the IDF [sic] soldiers who may soon find themselves within the Gaza Strip, within the framework of a ground operation which may happen in practice.

According to the report on the Jewish Voice [hakol hayehudi] website, Rabbi Yosef gave a sermon today at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and among other statements blessed the IDF soldiers by saying: “we warmly bless the soldiers and pray that they leave in peace and return in peace.” Immediately thereafter he said that the IDF should learn from the Syrians “how to slaughter and how to crush the enemy.”

According to the report, Rabbi Yosef said similar things in a sermon he gave in Jerusalem last weekend. Yosef was interrogated by the police in the past for alleged incitement, due to his statement of consent and approval for the Torat Hamelech book, which deals in the halacahic laws of war under the Torah.

The Syrian army has been universally condemned for indiscriminate shelling and bombing of Syrian towns and cities resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries and widespread destruction amid the ongoing civil war in that country.

Frequent incitement

Incitement by Israeli religious leaders is not new. Last June, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu was appointed to an advisory committee for Magen David Adom, Israel’s ICRC affiliate.

Eliyahu, the Chief Rabbi of Safad, whose salary is paid by the Israeli government, has a long, well-documented history of extreme racism and has called for violence against Palestinians.

"This summer, Yosef Elitzur and Yitzhak Shapira, who head an influential seminary in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, published The King's Torah, a 230-page guide to how Jews should treat non-Jews.
The two rabbis concluded that Jews were obligated to kill anyone who posed a danger, immediate or potential, to the Jewish people, and implied that all Palestinians were to be considered a threat. On these grounds, the pair justified killing Palestinian civilians and even their babies.
Last month Mr Shapira also backed the use of Palestinians as human shields, a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention, and a practice that Israel's supreme court has outlawed."

"Ahmed Jaabari, who among other things was indeed a leader of the military wing of Hamas, but in recent years had also been the top negotiator with Israel for, among other things, the prisoner exchange in which the Israeli soldier Ghalit was released, and in return for the release of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. In that context, he had been negotiating through various intermediaries, both within Egypt and within the Israeli peace movement, for a longer-term ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.

As has happened before, when Israeli negotiations were underway with the Palestinians, they have responded to the possibility of serious negotiations by assassinating those who were involved in the negotiations. This happened in 1996 years when another Hamas leader was assassinated in Gaza while he was reading the text of a final proposed peace agreement."

...And the name calling goes on and on and on...The fundamental problem is the lack of trust on both sides. Israelis don't believe that Hamas or the PA recognize their right to exist Hamas,PA and Palestinian people do not seem to believe Israel acknowledges theirs. Unfortunately, with Right-wing extremists on both sides they are all correct. The only solution I can see is an unconditional acceptance of each position without resorting to historical contexts of any kind. There are 2 pages on FaceBook that seem to present this attitude with dignity and respect.: //www.facebook.com/IsraelLovesPa... and //www.facebook.com/pages/Palesti... . I am sorry if this is sounds too simplistic,but i truly believe that it is that simple.